


Native and Non-Native Fauna of the North

by gishmi1ish



Category: His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman, The Golden Compass (2007)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Post-Canon, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, First Time, Friendship/Love, Interspecies Sex, Other, Size Difference, Size Kink, blink-and-miss-it implied femslash, graphic depictions of grief/depression/self-loathing, it doesn't count as a threesome if two of the parties are one person-- right?, it's just that one of the bodies is a bear, nobodies' bodies are wrong, very minimal plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-07
Updated: 2016-05-07
Packaged: 2018-06-06 20:10:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6768310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gishmi1ish/pseuds/gishmi1ish
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>tags pretty much say it all. Iorek (yes, a bear) & Lyra (yes, a human). Oh, & Pan as a totally non-canon wildcat. Because that's how I misremembered it as I wrote it, & then decided, hey-- my AU, & I like him better that way for this story. Someday maybe I'll write a more canon-compliant fic where he's a pine marten & she actually does go to Jordan College as planned. This, however, is not that fic.</p><p>*dork*</p>
            </blockquote>





	Native and Non-Native Fauna of the North

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Beauty and the Bear](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3243968) by [CallingAllWishingStars](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CallingAllWishingStars/pseuds/CallingAllWishingStars). 



> Not for the faint of heart.  
> I deliberately left Lyra's age open to interpretation-- feel free to mentally age her up if you feel squicked by her canon age.
> 
> This is my very first fanfic post ever, and it's completely unbetaed, so comments & crits will be rewarded with kisses. And if you just want to flame the pairing, I'm perfectly happy to get into an argument with you about how sentient beings of all body types deserve love and physical closeness. :D

She cannot forgive her father and so gives up her name. “I will answer to Lyra Silvertongue,” she says fiercely, “or not at all.” And when nobody protests this, her fierceness, robbed of a proper battle, falters and turns inwards.  


When the time comes to part ways, she goes with Iorek to the north-- it feels more like her home than Oxford does anymore. Some days she rides lying flat along his shoulders, not so much to keep out of the wind as because --she’d never realized this before-- staying upright seems to require an internal source of buoyancy. Like a balloon, she thinks, remembering Lee Scorsby’s long, weathered hands on the ropes --not his face, just his hands-- and the weight of that grief brings itself to bear alongside the other. She weeps, slow and silent, for uninterrupted hours, and if Iorek knows, he says nothing. Sometimes she rouses herself enough to wish he would.  
As for Pantalaimon, at first he curls by her side and tries to comfort her-- but she will not look at him now. His shape chafes at her; she feels it as one more betrayal. “Why can't you change?” she begs him. “Just once more. Anything. Be anything else, please. I can’t-- I can’t--”

So now mostly he roams free, like a witch’s daemon, and sometimes she does not see him for days. He is there, though, when they reach Iorek's castle, and has made his own peace with the bears. He walks amongst them, sliding through their feet, and leaping to ride one or another's back when he pleases. They pay him no more mind than a snowflake. It causes a queer burn in her heart to see him making friends without her, but she turns away. Let him. So long as he leaves Iorek to me, she thinks, and makes jealous fists in his fur. Iorek is still _my_ friend.

The witch Serafina Pekkala comes one clear night to see how she is faring, but Lyra resents the intrusion in her affairs.  
“Where is your daemon?” she asks, and Lyra turns away.  
“I don't know”, she says shortly. “I don't care.” The witch clucks her tongue, not liking what she sees.  
“He is a part of yourself. A person who hates a part of herself can never do any good in the world.”  
“It's his fault,” says Lyra, in a sullen voice that holds none of the fury that used to propel her. The witch looks at her sadly and gathers her into her arms.  
“It's nobody's fault, Lyra. It never is anybody's fault. Would you rather they have cut you apart forever, so that you couldn’t feel this way?”  
“I don't know,” says Lyra stubbornly. But she lets Serafina Pekkala hold her a little while, and stroke her hair. She is still just a child, thinks the witch. Witches never have children of their own, and Lyra, knowing this, suffers to be held.  
“Why are you here, anyway?” she asks finally. Serafina Pekkala says she has come to take Lyra back with her to the witches, to live with them and learn--  
“No,” says Lyra. “I want to stay here. With Iorek.” Serafina is surprised-- she thought Lyra would want to come.  
“It is already late for you, but if you come now, we would take you. If you do not come now--” Lyra shrugs her off.  
“I want to stay.” Serafina sighs. At least she is still stubborn.  
“Come with me, Lyra,” she cajoles her now, lowering her lashes and turning her face aslant to let the moonlight show her beauty. “We can teach you so many things-- don't you want to learn how to fly?”  
“Perhaps I'll find a balloon,” says Lyra. The witch does not laugh, but after a minute’s scrutiny, bows her head.  
“Yes, perhaps you will.” She gathers herself and leaves abruptly, not even making her goodbyes to the king.

 

He finds her lying in her own sweat and stink among a pile of furs and discarded clothes.  
“Lyra,” he rumbles, but her only response is to curl further inward upon herself, hiding her face. He sighs. He should never have let this go on so long. He plucks her out of her nest, gently, but still she squeals in startled protest. She is limp in his paws like a broken doll, her face smeared with dirt and tears. He does not know what else to do, so he puts his head down and washes her face with broad strokes of his tongue-- first her forehead, then her cheeks. She squinches halfheartedly against the assault, but otherwise does not move.  
“Oh, Iorek, it should've been you,” she says when he is done, but he doesn't know what she means, and she doesn't explain, just puts her arms around him and buries her face in his fur.  
“What did they take from you?” he asks, remembering how bereft he was without his armor. She begins again to cry. He sneezes --the smell gets worse with time, not better-- and pulls away. “This must stop,” he says, and with one long claw he slices down the front of her nightdress. She is so startled, she actually stops crying. He starts where he'd left off, below her chin, and bathes her as thoroughly as though she were a young cub. Or, he thinks uncomfortably, a lover. He has heard of such things, but given them no credence. But when he lifts her arm and puts his muzzle there to clean away the accumulated sweat and misery, she makes a sound he has never heard her make before. Ears pricked and wary, he continues, slowly. When he pulls away, her eyes are closed, and her skin is flushed. She smells, now, not filthy, but of musk. She opens her eyes; regards him with the calm seriousness he had feared she would never show him again.  
“Iorek,” she says, low, and he pulls away, suddenly afraid of her as he has never been afraid before. Her face goes tight. “I disgust you,” she says. “I disgust myself.” He feels an ache deep within him.  
“No, Lyra.” He puts his face down to her again. “But I do not like to see you like this.”  
“Naked?” she says, bitterly. He sighs heavily rather than answer-- the gust of it ruffles her draggled hair. She bends her head to rest against him again. “No, I know,” she says, chastened.

“Iorek,” she says suddenly, after a bit. “Have you ever been in love?”  
Ah, he thinks, so that's it.  
“I have had my heart broken,” he says. “She would not have me. Perhaps--”  
“No,” she says. “Not like that. He would have had me.” It falls into place, then-- her daemon; Will Parry-- and his snarl catches even him off guard. That anyone should mate her and then abandon her to her loneliness is untenable, but that it should be someone he esteemed makes him feel her betrayal as his own. “It's not his fault,” she says. “He would've stayed if he could-- it wasn't his fault--”  
“It doesn't matter,” he says. He licks her again, low, her hip, in slow, steady strokes. He snuffles her belly, getting the scent of her good and deep in his nostrils.  
“It should've been you,” she says again, and he nudges her round so he can clean her back.  
“Yes, it should,” he says. She shivers, damp in the cold air, but he'll take care of that soon enough.  
“But we can't of course,” she says. He stops.  
“We can't?”  
“Well,” she says, a spark of her old arrogance showing through. “You're-- a bear.” He snorts and resumes licking her, low down now, near her buttocks, where she is especially salty. Long, slow passes with his tongue. Her breath catches.  
“And you are a human,” he says. “But I am your friend--” this, of course, she cannot dispute, “--and your equal.” She falters. She is confused. A little frightened. Excited. All a fine distraction from despair. “Lyra,” he says.  
“Tha-- that's not--” she is shivering fiercely now, and he decides he can leave the rest for later. He nuzzles up under her tangle of hair, takes the back of her neck gently in his teeth. She goes absolutely still-- and then the shivering starts up worse than ever. “I-Iorek,” she says. The heady scent of her desire is everywhere, now. He wants to roll in it, cover himself with her musk, let everyone who comes near smell her on him. She presses herself back into the thick, soft fur of his belly, and he growls approvingly. This close, he can feel it shudder through her, can feel the way her spine arches in response. Her daemon chose well, he thinks. She is indeed like a cat. Arrogant, fierce-- flexible. He lets her go a moment, licks the place where his teeth held her. “I do not care, so long as you are mine,” he says. She breathes, jerkily.  
“A-and you?” she asks. He laughs, low so as not to hurt her ears, and rubs his face against her cheek.  
“I've always been yours.”  
“Oh--” she says, and folds in upon herself as though he has wounded her.  
“Shhhh,” he says. “Shh.” It seems some more distraction is in order. He shifts his weight forward, letting his cock unsheath and brush against her thigh.  
“Ah--” she stutters, “is that--?”  
“Yes,” he says. “You will probably have to lean forward a bit if you want it.” She doesn't move, but he can hear her breathing very fast. He waits. “Do you want it?” She shakes herself.  
“Yes,” she says. “Yes.” She pokes her hips back at him and bends her head forward, baring her neck to him once more. The sight makes him throb and slaver, and he bends himself almost double so that he can get his jaws on her again. There is a small bout of arranging and shifting, and then-- “ _Slow_ ,” she says, and he growls agreement. He covers her. The tiny mouth of her cunt is slick and warm against his cock-- much warmer than the temperature of her skin would lead one to guess. He presses against the tightness, and the narrow head goes in easy, making them both gasp and shudder. He keeps one forepaw on the ground so as not to crush her, but wraps the other around her front, pulling her close and keeping her warm. “ _Ah_ ,” she says, muffled, and he feels himself slip further in. She's unbearably tight, maddeningly silken, and he feels a deep, unbearlike chill of anxiety-- what if she leaves him, and he can never have this again? What if-- He growls and presses harder, spreading her open. He will worry later. Now--  
“Iorek, oh-- Iorek--” the words are coming from somewhere low within her, convulsing their way out like something painful she must purge if she is to survive. “I'm going to-- Iorek--” He is not even halfway in, but he can feel how stretched she is around him, and then, like a blow to the spine, he feels her cunt grind down around him, trapping and sucking him so hard he feels as though it is he caught in her teeth and not the other way round. She bellows as she comes, and jerks so hard she pulls her neck from his grip. He lets her go-- his own roar crashing over him from behind like a wave, and he can only do his best to keep his movements tiny, to not spear himself all the way up into her belly as he spasms and comes, helplessly, stunningly, for so long he thinks it might kill him.  
Afterwards, he licks up the wetness, and tucks her into the curve of his body, and puts his face near her so he can smell her as he sleeps. He startles awake a while later when her daemon leaps up graceful as a dancer and drapes himself purring along his neck. Iorek tucks his head upside down, showing the soft ruff under his chin. The purring increases and Pantalaimon takes the invitation, kneading his paws against his throat. His fur is too thick to feel the prick of claws, but still, it is sweet.

Outside, the wind picks up, sighing like a school of ghosts. Pan watches over them in their sleep. They make a shape like a chestnut bud, waiting to unfurl. _Lyra_ , he says, and she stirs, not quite awake. _Pan_ , she murmurs. _I dreamed you were gone._ He doesn't answer. _Pan_ \-- she comes fully awake now and turns to look. In the dim light, his eyes gleam gold. If she is distressed to see his shape, she does not show it. He kneads and purrs and she lets herself be lulled by the rhythm, by the steady slitted gold of his eyes. His winter coat, coming in white.


End file.
